Excellent overview. Pulling out my copy next. We have a gaming weekend coming up and I think I can convince a number of people to play if I can teach the rules.
Yellow Spain. Grey Prussia. White Austria. Dark Green Russia. Blue France. Red Great Britain. Light Green Ottoman Empire (for those displaying them) Standard colors identification in any Napoleonic games since War and Peace from AH in fact. Especially as Belgium don't exist yet at that time 😉. It's mostly based on the color of the main infantry uniforms of those nations. Well not for Spain as it was white uniforms at first then dark blue. And Prussia never had grey but dark blue one..Well they had some grey uniforms but for a very short period of time and only for a very specific and rare unit in 1813. As for Ottoman infantry if I remember correct it was the pants of regular infantry that was green, shirt were red) As for the map very strange to see Confederation of the Rhine as it appears only in 1806 with the defeat of Prussia, the rise of Bavaria and Saxony to kingdom, the creation of Westphalia with many annexions from Prussian and Great Britain territories. It also got Switzerland in it. But Switzerland never was a part of it. Strange also to had Hamburg in that Confederation. It was annexed to France in that era. And it was never a strategic town for the Confederation (it was Munich capital of Bavaria, Cassel capital of Westphalia and Dresden capital of Saxony in fact). Historically the Confederation dissolves slowly in 1813 with the withdrawal of french alliance from Bavaria and Saxony and the capture of Cassel by the Prussian-Austrian-Russian coalition. Hamburg never was caught by the Coalition as it was defended by one of the best marshall Napoleon ever had : Davout. Strange also to see Mantua as the main forteress in Kingdom of Italy. It was correct in 1796 as it was the main goal of the napoleonic first Italy campaign. But not at all in 1805 as the main forteresses were in Milan and Genova. For example Mantua fell very quicky in 1813 but Italy still remains in french alliance until the abdication Also strange Kiev as a forteress but not Moscow? No forteress in Austria? also a bit strange as Prague was a huge one (and was used as a major supply point for all Austrian army since the XVIth Century Also odd Dantzig as forteress. Okay there was a long siege in 1806-07 but Konigsberg was a much more vital one for Prussia. When Dantzig falls Prussia continues the war until Konigsberg was subdued (and also the Russian-Prussian armies there definitively beatten at Friedland. The french (and also born in Brittany) I'm is laughing at the position of the Brest harbor. Nope that's not there. It's the town of Quimper there (and it has no harbor at all). Brest is a bit more in the north west But well. If the game is good and balanced and fun nothing of this will matters in the end. Just to be a bit picky about geographic and political realities of that era. After all wargames could be used to learn a bit more about the history of the era it is not?
Yeah I'll be curious to see if some that stuff is scenario based, or kind of changed for balance issues. Not being a Napoleonics expert I appreciate the input and will be curious to hear thoughts after we play and give some feedback etc.
Decent game with beautiful production value. BUT alas - the force pools with fixed years on the nation cards versus the random coalition cards doesn't add up..
Looks real good. Unfortunately I'm sort of a forced solo player. But that hasn't stopped my collector/alter ego from picking this up...especially if I can't find a game "I must have". You piqued my interest when you said they had an abridged turn track... As always your vids are most excellent.
